tapestry

The purpose of Tapestry workshop is a professional development workshop to increase numbers of diverse students in high school computing classes. Lighthouse team has offered this workshop annually since 2008 funded by National Science Foundation (NSF). Invited high school computing teachers, among applicant teachers, attend 3-day workshop. For more information about the Tapestry workshop visit, here.

How is this workshop relevant to my work?

I am a postdoctoral research associate for Lighthouse CC project. Lighthouse CC one of the project that Lighthouse team is working on. This also funded by NSF since 2015 and targeting professional development of community college computing instructors. Unlike face-to-face based Tapestry workshop, Lighthouse CC provides online courses in the format of MOOC.

Tapestry workshop and Lighthouse CC is targeting different audiences, tapestry is for high school teachers while Lighthouse CC is for community college instructors. However, the goal is same: to increase diversity in computing courses including females and under-represented minorities. Considering (1) both projects are for professional development, (2) for adult learners, and (3) Lighthouse CC is focusing on creating an online learning environment in which can provide face-to-face workshop like learning environment, my goal is to get some ideas to improve our online learning environment design by observing Tapestry workshop.